The conventional way of painting edges, especially wall edges near a ceiling is a very tedious, arduous process. It requires that a painter use a paint sprayer in one hand and a long handle paint shield in another hand. The painter must climb up a ladder with these two items in his hands, and paint a wall that he can reasonably reach. Then the painter must climb down the ladder, move it and climb back up to paint another region of the wall. This dramatically increases the time it takes a painter to paint, resulting in a much lower productivity and earning potential for the painter.
U.S. Patent Office Document No. 4,085,703, Published/Issued on May 25, 1978, to Glowacki teaches spray painting shield that includes a flat reinforcing member attached to an elongate handle. The shield permits a painter or his assistant to support the shield while keeping his arms and hands out of the spray pattern. The reinforcing member is attached to rotate relative one end of the handle. A spring clip mounted on the reinforcing member is used to hold large flat shields, many of which are disposable, for preventing paint from falling on selected areas. The flat shields may be cut or combined to conform with the perimeter of protected items, and the reinforcing member may conveniently include a metal edge used for scraping or occasional brush work.
U.S. Patent Office Document No. 4,248,914, Issued on Feb. 3, 1981, to McClane discloses a method of utilizing a spray painting shield comprising a large, flat flexible masking blade attached to an elongated handle. Placing the front edge of the shield along a corner edge formed by a surface to be painted and an adjacent surface. Pushing the handle to flex the blade to about 40 degrees-80 degrees with respect to the edge and adjacent surface.
U.S. Patent Office Document No. 5,103,762, Issued on May 14, 1992, to Long et al. teaches a spray paint shield for manually protectively covering a portion of a wall or ceiling when the adjoining ceiling or wall portion, respectively, is being spray painted. The spray shield includes a generally flat, elongated sheet of thin, flexible material such as stainless steel or aluminum, having a straight distal or working edge and an elongated handle pivotally connected to, and extending from, the flat sheet at a mid point of the edge of the flat sheet opposite its distal edge. The handle is lockably positionable within the plane defined by the flat sheet at any convenient acute angle to the distal edge.
U.S. Patent Office Document No. 2005/0035221 A1, Published/Issued on Feb. 17, 2005, to Gathright teaches a paint shield that includes two rigid sheets of material which are joined in a perpendicular orientation. The angle of this joint matches the angle of an interior room wall to wall corner. The paint shield also includes an elongated handle mounted between the sheets and angling away from the joint. The handle may have a telescopic capability. The handle may also be positioned closer to a particular wall. The angle of the handle allows ambidextrous use of the paint shield, while providing unhampered excess for spray painting the ceiling or floor corner. A painter may hold the shield against a wall corner, while spray painting the exposed ceiling or floor and masking the protected wall surfaces.
U.S. Patent Office Document No. 7,063,275 B2 Published/Issued on Jun. 20, 2006, to Byron teaches a sprayer having a spray shield and a spray shield retainer. The spray shield is removably attached to the spray shield retainer for efficient storage when not in use. The spray shield can be contoured to the body of the sprayer. The spray shield is configured for attached to a spray wand proximate to a nozzle.
It is apparent now that different paint shields are present in the prior art that are adequate for various purposes. However, the aforementioned references do not disclose the elements of embodiments of the present invention and fail to contemplate the unique and advantageous aspects of various embodiments of the invention. Furthermore, even though the prior art devices would not be suitable for the purposes of embodiments of the present invention as heretofore described.